+DarkLord Posted February 15, 2016 Share Posted February 15, 2016 Well, I do have a Mega 4 ST (not a 16mhz but that shouldn't matter)... What TOS is on yours? And are you using the UDS-10 or 1100? I could probably fully test the setup and handle most of the debugging. The only real problem would be that since you're not using an MSS-100 or one that would handle domain names, you would have to edit the ip's when they changed, but we could work around that. TOS v1.04. Yep, still using the UDS10. That model just seemed to work out the best for my setup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simba7 Posted February 15, 2016 Share Posted February 15, 2016 All retro is good retro... but still sad it's not Atari... I have multiple platforms at my house (Atari 800XL, Commodore 64, Apple //e (and //gs), a Tandy 1000RL-HD), so I'm aiming for that. Plus, with having 1.4TB of space available, it should be able to handle it for quite awhile. Also, different doors across different platforms. I am curious if I can do emulation and have it feed information to Synchronet (sort of a FOSSIL door). We will soon find out! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MacRorie Posted February 17, 2016 Share Posted February 17, 2016 ANSI screens... you can just use ASCII screens to get it to work. You won't get the fancy colors but it does at least work. You can add colors by using screen codes ($xx) when editing those on Atari 8-bit but this way is of course not WYSIWYG. Some other things... EOL character must be $9B (ATASCII EOL) for all screens. The backslash is a reserved character by the BBS and it's not recommended to use it anywhere. There are ANSI screens designers to be used with MS-Dos and Windows. (The old ones don't seem to work on x64 systems, which is to be expected). They can be used to make screens for Pro as long as you translate the EOL when uploading them to the BBS itself. Not all ANSI features are supported but the basic colors, graphics and screen codes seem to work (with the exception of the "CLS" code which doesn't always clear the screen). The HyperSpeed driver for the BB is not required for Pro!. I wonder if it's required for anything at all. Played with it in the past and, apart for the pushed up MEMLO, I never noticed any difference when using it. Well, yes & no. See, I had edited all of the ATASCII screens and then just copied them into the ANSI/ASCII directories, but that is when the trouble started: Every screen was not displaying at all. SO, I tried editing the screens in Notepad on the Windows box. Copied them over and got Error 135/Error 136. So, I just copied over the generic ones I had that at least sort of worked and edited one line eith SDX "ED" This kinda worked, but it is not pretty nor is it 100% accurate. I will drop the Lantronix down to 9600 baud and see if that fixes the problem. Thanks for all of the help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Android8675 Posted February 18, 2016 Share Posted February 18, 2016 (edited) All retro is good retro... but still sad it's not Atari... Synchronet is really an amazing bbs program. Besides being free it's easy to do just about anything with a little javascript knowledge. The development on the BBS is quite lively. I eventually plan to have people connect to the board and have portals to my ST running FoReM, or my 800+Incog running... well haven't figured that one out yet. All those great ST Doors, portals to other BBSs as well. Pretty sick what you can do with a little time. I was also considering having the board connect to emulated atari's so you can have more than one person online at the same time (starts new emulators when people want to connect). That's far future though. -A. shodanscore.com Edited February 18, 2016 by Android8675 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MacRorie Posted February 19, 2016 Share Posted February 19, 2016 BTW: "The Draw" is a nice program. Pity it only runs in DOS, but if you use "DOSBox" it runs rather nicely and conveniently. It saves them in ASCII as well, unless you have an animation in it and then it won't convert it. ANSIDRAW.COM, however, will load up the animated file and save it to straight ASCII (a nicer looking conversion as well!) On a related note, has any one noticed a large difference between how different telnet front ends parse ANSI? I have tested four different ways to telnet in and all four give different results with the ANSI screens. The best, so far, seems to be Telnet lite on iOS. Terminal.app does a better job parsing colors/animation, but in the end fails by being less readable. Others I have tried fail miserably. Finally, does any one have a way to test VT52 screens without an ST? I thought I had an ST coming, but DHL seems to have lost it . . . . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fox-1 / mnx Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 I used "The Draw", and later also "Pablo Draw", which is a bit easier to work with (but still doesn't run on x64). I don't know much about the differences between VT52 protocols, but Bobterm does VT520 and VT520E. Never used it. If it happens someone uses it when calling in they just get plain ASCII screens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tillek Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 I used "The Draw", and later also "Pablo Draw", which is a bit easier to work with (but still doesn't run on x64). I don't know much about the differences between VT52 protocols, but Bobterm does VT520 and VT520E. Never used it. If it happens someone uses it when calling in they just get plain ASCII screens. Pablo Draw works on mine...... Intel 4790k with Windows 10 64bit...... But I also like to use FANSI and keep it old school.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tillek Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 BTW: "The Draw" is a nice program. Pity it only runs in DOS, but if you use "DOSBox" it runs rather nicely and conveniently. It saves them in ASCII as well, unless you have an animation in it and then it won't convert it. ANSIDRAW.COM, however, will load up the animated file and save it to straight ASCII (a nicer looking conversion as well!) On a related note, has any one noticed a large difference between how different telnet front ends parse ANSI? I have tested four different ways to telnet in and all four give different results with the ANSI screens. The best, so far, seems to be Telnet lite on iOS. Terminal.app does a better job parsing colors/animation, but in the end fails by being less readable. Others I have tried fail miserably. Finally, does any one have a way to test VT52 screens without an ST? I thought I had an ST coming, but DHL seems to have lost it . . . . If you want to send them to me, I could check them out for you (as would probably a dozen ST users). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triads Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 (edited) ... Edited February 21, 2016 by Triads Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tillek Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 ... ??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triads Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 !!! Was replying to the wrong thread.. Nothing to see here, move along.. move along.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fox-1 / mnx Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Pablo Draw works on mine...... Intel 4790k with Windows 10 64bit...... But I also like to use FANSI and keep it old school.... It may be there are newer versions that do indeed work on x64. Will look into it when I'm at it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MacRorie Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 I just logged in to Bates Motel using ATASCII mode and the BBS is throwing junk at me. See example below when I type 'y' for yes I get some chars ahead of the 'y' like it is in ANSI mode or something. cap1.JPG I am not certain how to fix this. I updated the settings on the Lantronix and still get garbage characters when logging in on my 8-bit (through a Lantronix as well). I do not get those characters when in Telnet mode. I am slowly editing the ASCII/ANSI menus and I think I have ANSI figured out, but I know ATASCII is working. I will also start putting files up. I am going to try logging in through emulation and see if that gets me the same response. If anyone else is logging in through emulation and can let me know, that would be great. Finally, if anyone notices any time irregularities, please let me know. My replacement R-Time8 cartridge (that is nearing "commercial" availability) has been running the time on the BBS for the last 3-4 days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MacRorie Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 I used "The Draw", and later also "Pablo Draw", which is a bit easier to work with (but still doesn't run on x64). I don't know much about the differences between VT52 protocols, but Bobterm does VT520 and VT520E. Never used it. If it happens someone uses it when calling in they just get plain ASCII screens. It's funny, when I was testing the board today, I noticed that BobTerm had VT52 emulation. I will have to try it out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tillek Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 I am not certain how to fix this. I updated the settings on the Lantronix and still get garbage characters when logging in on my 8-bit (through a Lantronix as well). I do not get those characters when in Telnet mode. I am slowly editing the ASCII/ANSI menus and I think I have ANSI figured out, but I know ATASCII is working. I will also start putting files up. I am going to try logging in through emulation and see if that gets me the same response. If anyone else is logging in through emulation and can let me know, that would be great. Finally, if anyone notices any time irregularities, please let me know. My replacement R-Time8 cartridge (that is nearing "commercial" availability) has been running the time on the BBS for the last 3-4 days. I've been calling with SyncTerm on my PC (it does a pretty good ATASCII mode) and haven't seen any of those characters. You're using the Black Box, right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MacRorie Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 I've been calling with SyncTerm on my PC (it does a pretty good ATASCII mode) and haven't seen any of those characters. You're using the Black Box, right? Yes, I am. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tillek Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 Yes, I am. Did you look into the HyperSpeed drivers? http://www.lenardspencer.com/Lenspencer/hyperspd.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 Pablo Draw works on mine...... Intel 4790k with Windows 10 64bit...... But I also like to use FANSI and keep it old school.... FANSI rocks. It's what I used to create all the ANSI screens on DarkForce. The guy who wrote it actually logged on to DarkForce a couple of times. Got to chat with him a bit - nice guy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tillek Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 FANSI rocks. It's what I used to create all the ANSI screens on DarkForce. The guy who wrote it actually logged on to DarkForce a couple of times. Got to chat with him a bit - nice guy. I'm just mad because I think my registered file got lost in that old hard drive crash in the 90's (the MSTE internal drive crashed and took like months of work on the BBS with it). Been stuck using the unregistered version.... Hoping I can still find the registered version on a backup someday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 Hate it when stuff like that happens. By the time I found FANSI, Eric was no longer supporting it. I tried, but IIRC, he told me he didn't have the software for keys 'n stuff any longer. It's still fully usable, and it can save your work though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triads Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 FANSI Installer & patched/registered executable 1.0 & 1.01 are available. Just looks like you cant escape out of the closing animation with unregistered version.. Unless there is a random nag screen elsewhere.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stacy Posted February 24, 2016 Share Posted February 24, 2016 Nice! I will have to check all of these out. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MacRorie Posted February 24, 2016 Share Posted February 24, 2016 (edited) Did you look into the HyperSpeed drivers? http://www.lenardspencer.com/Lenspencer/hyperspd.html I checked out the page, but the problem is not losing data, per se. It is adding random characters to A8 machines. Maybe it is just Bobterm that does it? I have 1.21 is there a newer version? Tillek is correct, I used SyncTerm on my Mac in ATASCII mode and had no problems whatsoever. I will keep at it, though. On a related front, I have cleaned up A LOT of menus and screens. I even did an oldschool ASCII connect screen for y'all! There are some things that I just CANNOT get my head around in terms of how it works. I think that trying to do a text_menu in an ASCII/ANSI editor just will not work. FOr some reason the BBS does not want to parse those. I am sure it is a GOOD reason, but I do not know it. So, armed with that knowledge, I amanged to clean up some of the misbehaving menus. I am still trying to run down on menu I am creating out of whole cloth, so that may take a bit. BTW, does anyone have any game modules? I will keep at it. Comeon down and check into the Motel! Mom says the showers are nice and warm . . . . 76.14.174.25 8888 -M Edited February 25, 2016 by MacRorie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted March 4, 2016 Share Posted March 4, 2016 The partition table 'only' has space to store up to 96 partitions. This means you can have 96 x 16MB = 1536MB available at any given time as long you swap in and out the right partitions, be it by hand or with software. But there's more... no one ever said you should stick to just 1 partition table and you can just add a few to get a multiple of 96 possible partitions. Only thing is that it's more difficult to work at multiple partitions at once which don't happen to be in the same table but it's not impossible. It requires a tool like a partition swapper but for whole tables in stead but there's no such thing in regular software, like DOS, that supports this way of swapping. You will eventually run into the problem that the sector number will be too high for the blackbox firmware. Although you'll probably won't need it, I believe the max. addressable space is around 1GB. IIRC the sector number is stored in a 24bit integer. I also found out a few years ago (when I tweaked that bios to use SCSI 0, Lun #1 to load/store settings on default) that when you use a higher than possible sector number, the blackbox uses the surplus in the sector # (the three MSB) for the scsi ID/Lun. I'm not sure whether this is a bug or a limitation. It is not that important, but it's important to know that your storage space is definitely not unlimited. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fox-1 / mnx Posted March 4, 2016 Share Posted March 4, 2016 16 Bit won't do and 48 bit would be overkill, so 24 bit integer sounds very plausible but how can you get the black box to use a "too high" sector number? When accessing the hardware externally with your own code it's likely possible but the BB menu doesn't allow one to use such sector numbers. Or does it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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